


fractured (from the fall)

by scullyseviltwin



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Post S2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 19:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12778107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: "Her body language speaks of someone on guard, and some of the satiation ebbs away, replaced with attentiveness, caution. She hadn’t shown any signs of hesitation during, hadn’t told him to stop, had encouraged him, in fact, to keep going. Harder. Deeper."





	fractured (from the fall)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Ryan Adams's "Two":  
>  _And i'm fractured from the fall_  
>  And i wanna go home  
> But it takes two when it used to take one  
> It takes two when it used to take only one.

He thought this only happened in movies.

Movies that were rated PG-13 but wanted to seem a bit risque. Post-sex, the woman with the sheet tucked in tight beneath her arms, demure; the man with the sheet draped carelessly, effortlessly, and Grecian over his hips. Sated, smiling, breathless.

He’s never actually had anyone yank up the covers as soon as the deed had been done. Locked down. 

Suffice to say, it’s worrisome.

There isn’t much light in the room, just the scant amount of moonlight that forces its way through the curtains, so it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. As he comes back to himself—to the moment—panting and a bit dizzy, completely nude, he reaches the few inches across the bed for her hand, just to touch some part of her, only to find that she’s clutched both of her palms together in a downward sort of prayer atop her thighs.

Instantly worrying. “Uhm,” Jim begins, because this isn’t in the playbook, not the one he has. He might have slept around in his life, but he isn’t some bumbling, sex-crazed idiot; he knows when his partner is having a good time, and he knows how to get her where she needs to be. He was absolutely certain that he’d ensured Joyce an orgasm—not that that matters; that isn’t what really matters now—because while it was cresting through her, he’d ceased all movement and had stared perhaps too openly at her as she’d fallen apart.

And he’d fallen a bit more for her, then. He didn’t know that was possible, but, he supposed sex meant a little more when you were having it with someone you were… whatever she was. He hasn’t examined that too closely, because he knows where it will lead. And it’s too soon, far too soon, to be dealing with those sort of feelings. He thinks it is, at least; he can’t imagine springing that on her with no preempt after all they’ve been through.

So he tucks it away, way in the back of his heart and his mind, to rest on the ever-cluttered backburner. 

Jim scrubs a hand over his face, tries to get himself together, a feat that’s much more difficult than it’s been any time in the past, as his fingers and toes are still tingling and his heart won’t stop racing and his stomach won’t seem to stop fluttering. 

Fuck. 

He shakes it off, physically, and angles his body towards hers, smoothing his manic hair back into place. One leg angled over the other. Open, inviting, absolutely bone-lethargic.

Her body language speaks of someone on guard, and some of the satiation ebbs away, replaced with attentiveness, caution. She hadn’t shown any signs of hesitation during, hadn’t told him to stop, had encouraged him, in fact, to keep going. Harder. Deeper. 

Yes.

She hadn’t been shy about telling him exactly what she wanted him to do. And he, ever-eager to please, had taken every directive.

Maybe it’s because this had all happened ass-backwards that everything feels so off-kilter. If he’d been able to plan it, really but some thought into it, he’d have taken her to dinner, but on a damned dinner jacket, done it right. But he’d been to her place to drop off Jane with the boys and she’d followed him to the door, looking up at him from under her bangs and his mouth had run away from him. 

Hat in his hands, feeling all of sixteen, he’d asked, “Wanna go out for a drink?”

The shy smile that’d perked her lips delighted him, made him feel a bit less like a complete fool. “Maybe back at your place?”

He hadn’t thought that this is what she’d meant by that, but two seconds inside the door and she’d spun and reached hungrily for him, and he’d been helpless not to follow where she led. Not helpless, no; if he’d wanted, he could have put a stop to it, but the tide of yearning he'd felt in that moment had overpowered his rational brain. He trusted her to know what she wanted, and trusted her to steer, he’d done his best to keep up.

It’d been fast, but impassioned and more than he would have previously thought he could take. The heaving emotion of it all, how she slid so easily beneath his skin and lingered. 

He hadn’t even really had the time to work up the nerve, figure out what he wanted to say, let her know how he felt. Joyce deserved that, at least, to know that someone cared about her, was thinking about her, wanted her, and wanted her safe. In his head—because he had thought about it, countless times—he’d have shown her a nice evening, proven he could be someone other than the someone she knew. But, he realizes now, maybe she actually doesn’t mind the someone he is. That’s wild. 

She heaves a sigh, pulling him out of his tumble of thoughts. 

He looks around the room, because he’s never felt so entirely without the capabilities the situation calls for, hasn’t ever had this difficulty finding words. His eyes wander as though he’s searching for an answer that he knows isn’t there. This isn’t how it goes, not usually. But this, to be sure, is not fucking usually.

He clears his throat, realizes he feels a bit sticky, half-heartedly wishes he could just invite her to share a shower and forget about all of this. But that’s not in the cards, because they’ve just had sex together for the first time and she doesn’t seem to be quite as over the moon about it all as he is. Or perhaps she is, and she’s experiencing it in a different way.

But that is so unlikely it’s laughable; his mind needs to stop supplying him with ridiculous workarounds to this situation. It can’t be ignored. For once, with a woman in his bed, this woman, he doesn’t want to ignore it. 

“Joyce? Was…” He wracks his brain for the exact right words to say; the gravity of the situation calls for that. He doesn’t want to ask her if it was alright because he’s forty-three years old and he does think he’s asked that since his own first time. But he’s still a little fuzzy, his atoms and cells finding ways to right themselves again, fall back into place. It may take him a minute; that had been… something. 

Jim wants to hold her desperately. 

“It was… great,” she says, her voice sounding rough and unused. He isn’t sure whether it’s from the way she’d been using her vocal chords just recently—she’d certainly been louder than he’d expected—or, because she was upset. “Really, Hop, it was…”

There’s silence, a beat, and then it stretches out into an uncomfortable space. The sweat is cooling on his skin, making him feel prickly, and he’d like to get beneath the sheet as well, but he doesn’t want to rock the boat. “Okay,” he begins, elongating the word, not questioning, but hoping to prompt her into speech.

She takes a few breaths; he watches the movement of her chest, still coming to terms with that fact that she’s here. “Wish I had a cigarette,” is all she manages, deprecatingly, quietly, keeps her gaze focused forward, out the door of the cramped bedroom, on something so entirely other than him.

His eyes adjust a bit further, and he can see on her skin where he’s left his mark. Her neck, her shoulder, and if he were to peel back the light covers, he’s sure he’d find beard burn on the curve of her hip, most certainly on her thighs. Glancing at her face—her lips are so bitten they’ll no doubt chap—he’s relieved to find that she doesn’t look frightened, or melancholy, certainly not regretful.

Joyce looks a bit like she’s lost.

A gaping cavern, hollow and painful opens in his chest, at the idea that he’s somehow caused this. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs and rolls closer towards her, ever-watchful of how she reacts. She doesn’t recoil or start, but rather loosens the press of her hands in her lap, and glances down at him. “Are you okay?”

Her swallow is audible in the stillness of the room and he hazards to reach out and cup an elbow in his palm. “Might be good if you told me what’s going on, because I’m gonna be honest here, I don’t really know what’s happening.” he tries again. “If you wanted, to tell me, y’know.”

“That’s exactly what I don’t want,” she squeaks and squeezes her eyes shut. This, without a doubt, the most bizarre port-coital interaction he’s ever had, but it’s something that needs the space and time to unfurl 

“Alright, well. I-”

“I told Lonnie that I loved him the night I.” She rolls her eyes at herself. “The first time,” she blurt. On a sigh, her eyes fall closed and her shoulders slump. “That’s what I did, the first time. Completely lost myself in him, just like that.” 

At the mention of Lonnie, he tenses without conscious effort, the name sending a short burst of rage down his spine. Jim isn’t exactly sure where she’s going with this, but he’s listening. 

He made no secret out of disliking him in high school, and he hates him even more, now.  
The spineless lowlife had to be tracked down in Indianapolis and forced to sign the divorce papers; the news had spread all over Hawkins-not because it was terribly salacious, but because the Hawkins rumor mill was just that starved for content. Everyone knew the shit he’d put Joyce through.

Jim remembers at the time being very concerned what people thought of her. Public opinion seemed in her favor, but there were the few who’d said disparaging things, whispered about her in the grocery store. He didn’t know why at the time but that’s rankled him, and he’d been sure to shut that shit down whenever he came across it. Back then he thought it had been because of the high school crush he’d had on her and she on him.

Now, the focus is much sharper; how dare anyone say those things about a woman this remarkably strong.

She’d shown up at The Hideaway the evening she’d finally gotten the official signature, and he’d bought her a drink, and then another, and then told him she was glad it was all over. Jim had said he was glad she’d gotten rid of him, and that hadn’t been the proper thing to say at the time.

Joyce had pushed her whiskey sour at him, and had told him to go to hell. It’s a testament to who they’ve become, together and apart, over these past twenty-five years that she’s sharing this with him now. 

So he listens. 

Jim takes a risk, grabs the sheet and tugs it up over his legs and hips. On his side, he can watch her while she speaks, glean every nuance from the shifting of her face; he likes it this way. She feels the movement and watchese him shift, slides down a bit and mirrors his position.

They’re two half moons, curled into one another.

“It’s stupid, I know,” she laughs, at herself, but it’s not out of regret. It’s a gentle thing; it causes something to loosen within him, knowing that she’s allowing herself to be gentle on herself. “It’s not bad that I did, because, I thought I did, you know? I thought I loved him. The way he made me feel… and maybe in some part of my teenaged brain, I did, but. Taught me things. Times like that… teach you things.”

What he thought he wanted in high school seems eons away, and so ridiculous and foreign. “I can’t tell you all of the things that I did at nineteen that I think about now,” he mentions, in on it with her. He very nearly uses the word regret, but takes a large detour around it. 

“Oh, I’ll bet,” she laughs, and they share a look. Because they know. Not that it matters, now; it didn’t matter that he’d had a crush on her in high school, didn’t matter that she knew the trouble he got up to in tenth grade.

They were forty now, and it didn’t really matter at all, but it was sweet, having that knowledge; it lended to the fucked up patchwork of their history. 

Joyce swallows and moves in a shrug against the mattress. “But, it’s uhm. A cautionary tale? Is that it? From nineteen year old me, to me now.” Joyce shakes her head, smiles sadly, “Does that make sense?”

“Mm, yeah. I get it,” he thinks he does, just maybe. “You don’t want to get hurt.”

“Something like that,” she agrees, relief slipping in the gaps between her words. “Not that I think you will, it’s just…”

“I get self-preservation, Joyce, believe me.” His hand moves atop the blankets and reaches to settle on her hip. Her fingers twitch and she glances from his eyes to his hand and back. It’s a long few seconds before she reaches over and rests her palm atop his knuckles. 

“I mean, I’m… I’m not going to do this right, but... I don’t want to do it wrong.” She brings her free hand up to her mouth, bites at her thumbnail briefly. Anxiety manifesting itself has never looked so darling to him, and just as the cavern inside him had cleaved open, it fills right up. 

It occurs to him that this is the first time in a very, very long time that he’s bothered to stay awake for pillow talk. Not that there hadn’t been things to be said, before, he just hadn’t wanted to listen.

“There’s no way I’m not going to do this wrong,” he says, forcing a bit of lightness into his tone. Quid pro quo, he’s not well-versed in how to do this, not anymore, and it’s an almost-certainty that he’s going to screw all of this up. “It’s pretty much guaranteed to happen.” He sounds more full of humor than he feels.

“What? No, I-” She’s shaking her head vehemently, her hair tangling on the pillow, thinking he’s gotten it all confused. 

“Joyce,” he lets go of her hand, and gestures up and down his body. “Look at me, I’m definitely gonna do it wrong. I’m gonna do something wrong, at some point.”

Joyce’s mouth screws up; she’s thinking. So he breathes, and watches. Joyce doesn’t say a thing, just pressed her lips together and stares at his collarbone. 

Jim is going to have to take the lead, he realizes that —just another area he’s sure to screw it up—and so he shifts even further over in the bed and wriggles an arm beneath her pillow. He’s not holding her, but it’s close enough. “Split the difference? Say we’re both going to fuck up?” 

“I… I mean… you… al, alright. Uh, in it. That’s… god, hop, okay.” she blows out a breath, smiles, shakes her head at her own seeming impulsivity. But it’s not impulsive; it’s been a quarter of a century between then. And hearing her confirm that this isn’t a one-off, that they’re going to fuck things up, together, maybe for a long time, makes him feel so overwhelmed, so suddenly, that he swallows against a lump in his throat.

He thought he’d have to convince her, because in what world would Joyce Byers choose more pain, and all of the baggage that comes with him? He doesn’t question it, how can he? It’s one of the only things in the world that he finds he presently wants, to live alongside her. 

“Wow, okay, makes me feel better,” he jests, her waffling not exactly a ringing endorsement, but definitely enough for him to go on. 

She reaches out and slaps his arm, grinning, bashful but bright, shining. “I just don’t want to say it, yet,” and he catches her meaning, snatches it right up and tucks it away.

“Good,” he smiles, feels bigger than this bed, this room, this home, and slides his arm further over her hip and tugs a little; she shimmies closer. “I don’t want to say it yet, either.”

Her entire body jumps in shock. “You don’t?” comes her rushed gasp of surprise. 

“Not… not yet. Either.” He lives a thousand different lifetimes in that moment, all spiralling out and blooming before him. It’s the nexus, a precipice and he’s more than stunned that he even has this opportunity, here and now, to step blindly off of the cliff. 

They grin, completely and utterly dopey; it’s one of those moments in which Jim feels totally weightless, one of those perfect, surprising moments he wishes could last forever. But he’s lived too much life, and so has she, to believe that to be possible. 

She reaches out, pats his arm, oddly formal. It throws him off so much that he does a double-take. Joyce sighs, licks her lips, yawns. “I should get back soon…” She mentions, but leaves the sentence open-ended, like she could be persuaded to stay.

Just a little longer. He just wants to keep her a little longer. 

He laughs, turns onto his back, tosses an arm beneath his head. “They’re thirteen, Jonathan’s home, they’ll be okay until midnight.”

She just watches him, debauched and expectant. Tiny, in the great expanse of his bed. 

“Come on, take a shower.” He tries for convincing, misses by a mile and lands in imploring. 

She pulls a face that’s half-serious and half-comical. “Here? Is it clean?”

That elicits a bark of a laugh, some sort of buoyancy effusing throughout his body. “I’ve got a kid now, have to keep up with all of that.”

“Oh, right, sure.”

“Is that a no?”

She’s up on one elbow, looking across at him, a snarky little challenge. “Do you have anything other than Dial?”

Jim tosses back the sheet and gets up, bare-assed; two can play. “Nope. Ladies don’t like Dial?”

“I’ll bring my Olay next time,” she says, tossing her side of the sheet off in much the same manner. 

And it’s the mention of next time, next time, that puts a little skip in his step as she follows behind him.


End file.
